The SKIL Infrastructure chairman tells Shobhana Subramanian how he went from selling brooms to the Bombay Port Trust to building India?s first private sector port at Pipavav
Despite a severe cough, Nikhil Gandhi hasn?t lost his sense of humour. We?re at the Souk on the fourth floor of Mumbai?s Taj Mahal Palace in Apollo Bunder, which was opened in the centenary year of the Taj in 2003. The restaurant is known as much for the food that it serves as for the magnificent view of the harbour and lives up to its reputation on this pleasant afternoon, the boats in the bay taking one?s breath away. It?s Gandhi?s favourite restaurant and one he picked without a moment?s hesitation when I called to invite him to lunch with FE. The chairman of SKIL Infrastructure, who started out as a small-time businessman and later built India?s first port in the private sector at Pipavav, is now excited at the thought of building the country?s first warships.
We decide to opt for the business lunch buffet. There?s plenty on offer in terms of salads and starters, all with exotic names. And while Gandhi stays vegetarian, I pile up my plate with some prawn, fish and lamb starters and also try out the stuffed vine leaves. The cough, I discover, is the result of Gandhi having inhaled clouds of dust at the Bangalore air show, where he ended up signing a couple of agreements with Swedish firms to make defence equipment. He has been quite caught up with the defence space for some time now and lately has been poring over books on warships, admitting that the technical stuff can be quite challenging. But he?ll come up the curve soon enough.
Indeed, the fact that he never went beyond school doesn?t seem to have been any kind of handicap for the 51-year-old Gandhi who?s pulled off a string of projects?whether it?s ports, roads or a container service. Gandhi recalls how he was pulled out of Mrs Walton?s school in Calcutta after Naxalites set the school bus on fire one day, and was put into the neighbourhood Gujarati medium school because his mother was so traumatised by the event. The result was that when he ended up in an English medium college, he couldn?t cope. ?It was terrible; I couldn?t understand a word and after 15 days I cried and told my parents, I can?t do it.?
So he switched to ferrying paan leaves to Bombay, bringing them from Calcutta in cane baskets, in unreserved train compartments, and selling them to vendors between Bhuleshwar and Ghatkopar. He would then pick up toys to be sold back home. Having eked out a sum of R45,000 from his trading efforts, Gandhi managed to win a contract to supply 80,000 brooms to the Bombay Port Trust (BPT) and that?s when he first saw the port and fell in love with it. Even while he continued to supply cleaning cloths to BPT, he managed to get on to the board of BPT, no mean achievement for someone who did not even belong to the city. How did you pull that off, I ask? As it happens, this was the late 1980s and Gandhi managed to win the confidence of a couple of the seniors who inducted him to the board against the quota reserved for members of the ?user community?. That was a leg up for the young Gandhi, then not even 30, who used his proximity to the members to learn about ports and the infrastructure surrounding them. Even as he turned manufacturer of marine equipment and started exporting bulk drugs, the ?fiery speaker? in him convinced both the Gujarat and the central governments that the private sector needed to play a role if India?s ports were to get going. More important, he managed to coax financial institutions, including IDBI, IL&FS and UTI, to put out money to build a port at Pipavav, which cost R500 crore.
But it wasn?t easy. Gandhi had another near brush with death as he was brutally attacked by the port mafia (a couple of workers were murdered). ?I?ve left that behind but I must say that it was a tough environment and the cobras and leopards didn?t help.? It was around that time that Gandhi bumped into a devotee of Shirdi Sai Baba who turned him into one too. While the gods are clearly happy with him, Gandhi has been fortunate to have also enjoyed the blessings of both the late Dhirubhai Ambani and elder son Mukesh. ?Dhirubhai uncle always supported me. When I first met him in his office in Maker Chambers IV, and he said I was a member of his zero club, I didn?t realise he meant that I was worth nothing.
But if I am alive today, and have not been bumped off by the mafia, it is because of him.? Gandhi doesn?t play down his connection with the Ambanis, saying he still consults Mukeshbhai, two years his senior. ?Their doors have been open to me and I have been very lucky to have his support,? he tells me. At the same time, he exudes confidence and is in no doubt whatsoever that he has it in him to take on large infrastructure ventures. Apart from his Kathiawadi business instincts, which include a knack for cost control, Gandhi believes younger brother Bhavesh?s ability to implement has played a big part in his success.
I get myself a second helping; my guest, understandably, doesn?t have much of an appetite. Gandhi discovered his love for Lebanese food at Maroush in London and has been a regular at the Souk since it opened. He?s also partial to Punjabi cuisine and doesn?t mind Chinese food now and then. What?s he?s most fond of is his Bengali food and he indulges himself during his Calcutta trips, which he makes at least once every three months. ?I love going to Calcutta because I have lots of friends there; I don?t need a reason to go there. And I?m very fond of Bengali food so I make sure to get myself invited to their homes,? he chuckles. He recalls how he once flew back, ahead of schedule, from a tour just so he wouldn?t miss a Bengali food festival. On every trip, he lugs back a sackful of muri and the masalas that go with it. ?I bring parcels of food for my sister and my friends here.? It?s not just food; Gandhi has brought back more than two dozen friends and classmates who now work with him in his many ventures.
A self-confessed workaholic, he?s busy trying to list SKIL Infrastructure to raise around R2,000 crore. SKIL once housed the Pipavav port, the railway container business and the roadways businesses, which were later sold. Gandhi believes it was a mistake to have sold those businesses, saying he did it because he needed to give the private equity players an exit. I am trying to estimate how much SKIL could be worth today, given that it holds a 26% stake in Everonn and a 52% stake in Pipavav Shipyard, which translate into a combined market capitalisation of less than R3,000 crore. Pipavav, of course, is still in the red but should turn the corner this year. Gandhi?s not willing to talk numbers just yet. That he?s always thought big and talked big is somewhat perplexing?he claims it was he who first convinced the government about the utility of SEZs?but there?s no doubt he?s been able to drum up financial support. Nonetheless, the $20 billion worth of investments that he?d planned to make, over 10 years, does seem a tall order; he says the global financial meltdown has delayed some of his plans?including for a new port?but is sure they?ll come through. SKIL today has only a minority stake in the two SEZs in Mumbai; it?s Mukesh Ambani and Anand Jain who are the bigger partners.
Gandhi has to do without his favourite rose petal ice cream today and we share some Oomali?a Middle Eastern dessert somewhat like kheer. Although work is clearly his big love?he calls it his hobby?the stress doesn?t get to him. That?s probably because he does manage to fit in some time for yoga and also exercises regularly in a small gym that he has built at home. And he finds time to catch up on his reading?his favourite book is Lee Kuan Yew?s From Third World to First. Yes, Nikhil Gandhi has come a long way.